Ickler: The last word on hurricanes

Harvey and Irma have blown themselves away and Jose seems to be petering out, but the media are full of questions and answers about the severity and frequency of this season’s Atlantic hurricanes.

Why was Houston doused with enough rain to float Noah’s Ark II? Why did Irma spread herself so wide and remain a Category 5 storm longer than any other Atlantic Ocean hurricane on record? Why is little Jose following so close behind these two monster storms?

Not surprisingly, pundits on the left are pointing toward climate change as a contributor to the over-the-top performances of Harvey and Irma. Bo-o-oring!

Oh, it’s true that the World Meteorological Organization released a statement concluding that Harvey’s rainfall rates “were likely made more intense by anthropogenic climate change,” and pointed to models showing that “hurricanes in a warmer climate are likely to become more intense.” But even the most avid climate change supporters admit that you can’t blame an individual weather event on climate change. If the pattern continues, that’s another story.

Thinking that the pundits on the right would offer more colorful opinions, I googled a few of the usual suspects. I was not disappointed.

Good old Rush Limbaugh said that Irma was hyped by liberal media to make people believe that climate change is real and to help their advertisers sell more bottled water. “There is a desire to advance this climate change agenda, and hurricanes are one of the fastest and best ways to do it,” Limbaugh said. So, apparently he believes that if you want to sell more solar panels and Perrier, all you have to do is conjure up a hurricane and call in the TV cameras.

Columnist Ann Coulter, a long-time climate change denier, weighed in on Twitter with this: “I don’t believe Hurricane Harvey is God’s punishment for Houston for electing a lesbian mayor. But that is more credible than climate change.”

I enjoyed the response to that by the lesbian in question. Former Mayor Annise Parker replied, “Darn it. I thought no one knew I had a super power over weather.” As for Coulter, Parker added, “You don’t try to deal rationally with stupid.”

This reminded me of a statement made many years ago by an Oak Bluffs neighbor who, upon returning from a selectmen’s meeting, said, “You can’t fix dumb.”

But I digress. Checking into the TRUnews website that features radio preacher Rick Wiles, I learned that Houston was inundated because it “boasted of its LGBT devotion.”

On the other hand, Michael Brown, a member of the Chief Tweeter’s evangelical advisory board, warned us to be “very careful before we make divine pronouncements about hurricanes and other natural disasters.” He said that Houston was “one of the few cities that has stood bravely against the rising tide of LGBT activism. Why would God single out Houston for punishment?”

Well, come on guys, which is it? Is the city of Houston devoted to or opposed to LGBT activists? You can’t have it both ways.

Next I checked in with Jim Bakker, the TV evangelist whose credentials include a sex scandal and prison time for fraud. Back in 2016, Bakker blamed Hurricane Matthew on President Obama, so I knew he’d have something to say. Sure enough, he stated that Harvey’s floodwaters are from God, as punishment for the former Houston mayor attempting to subpoena ministers’ sermons.

Bakker said that Harvey was “a sign that God’s judgment is coming. He wants to wake up America.” Bakker’s warning included a pitch for his “Tasty Pantry,” a $175 packet of dehydrated food he’s peddling to people in the path of God’s devastating alarm clock. There is no mention of media-hyped bottled water in the package so I assume that is extra.

For the final right-wing word on the hurricanes, I went to Pat Robertson, who in the past has seen major earthquakes as God’s work and declared that gay tourists at Disney World could bring a meteor strike down upon Mickey Mouse. Robertson had an answer, as usual.

According to Robertson, Harvey and Irma “are God’s punishment for the heathens at that Burning Man Festival. All the sex and drugs are a slap in the lord’s face and we are paying the price for it now.”

For those who, like me, had never heard of the Burning Man Festival, it is an annual event held in the Black Rock desert in Nevada. So please, Mr. Robertson, explain to me the rationality of a God who would drown Houston, which was last seen in Texas, and blow away several Caribbean islands and half of Florida as punishment for a gathering of consenting adults in the sands of far-off Nevada.

Oh, I forgot. You don’t try to deal rationally with stupid. And in this case I’m not referring to God.

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